Beschreibung:

CIVIL WAR, PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM]. A carte-de-visite album containing 93 carte-de-visite portraits of cabinet members, political figures, military officers, officers and others, ABOUT HALF OF WHICH ARE SIGNED (beneath, on the mounting page, or on the image), n.p., n.d. [1860s]. Mounted two to a page in an 1860s album: oblong 4to, brown hard-grained morocco covers elaborately gilt- and blind-tooled, spine lettered at base with original owner's name: "Kate Chase," pages gilt-edged, decorative gilt endleaves, fancy brass clasps and catches, the boards rubbed at edges, front inner hinge reinforced . AN ALBUM OF CIVIL WAR CARTES-DE-VISITE, MANY WITH SIGNATURES, COLLECTED BY KATE CHASE, DAUGHTER OF SALMON P. CHASE, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 1861-1864 An elaborate photograph album which, to judge by the large numbers of signatures which enhance it, must have been assembled by someone with easy access to the highest political and military circles in Washington during the early years of the Civil War. The "Kate Chase" named on the album's spine is almost certainly Katherine Chase, adult daughter of Salmon Portland Chase, Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, who resigned in 1864 when he was touted as a candidate for the Presidency against Lincoln. Kate Chase dominated Washington social circles: "remarkably beautiful, regal and captivating [she] was a gracious hostess for the hospitality which her father enjoyed giving; ambassadors, Senators and politicians were eager for her good-will...and Mrs. Lincoln had battles royal with her for (as she said) coming to the receptions at the White House as a guest and holding court on her own account...Indeed, this remarkable woman was generally considered to be a political force of magnitude..." (Albert Bushnell Hart, Salmon P. Chase , ed. G.S. Boritt, p.420). Kate soon married William Sprague, Governor of Rhode Island, 1859-1863, militia commander, senator and a supporter of his father-in-law's presidential aspirations. A photo of a portrait of Alexander Hamilton at the front of the album is inscribed on the verso to Salmon P. Chase from a Hamilton descendant. No photograph of President Lincoln is present in the album, but the collection does include an 1861 standing portrait of Mary Lincoln, by Brady. PARTIAL CONTENTS: Signed on mount: ELMER E. ELLSWORTH (Zoave officer, killed in Alexandria, 24 May 1861, a very rare signature), Secretary of War Simon Cameron, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, Carl Schurz, W.P. Fessenden, Generals Winfield Scott, Joseph Hooker, John E. Wool, Irvin McDowell, William Sprague (future husband of Kate Chase), Robert Anderson (of Fort Sumter), B.F. ("Beast") Butler, N.P. Banks, Butterfield, W.S. Rosecrans, John Pope O.M. Mitchell, Franz Sigel, Julius Stahel, JAMES A. GARFIELD, John S. Slocum, N.P. Willis, Marshall B. Field, and others. Signed on photograph: Hannibal Hamlin, Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase (Kate Chase's father), Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles, George Bancroft, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Franz Sigel, and others. Provenance : Katherine Chase, later Sprague -- Mrs. Philip D. Sang (sale, Sotheby's, 27 March 1985, lot 153 the album's early owner not identified).